


Inevitability

by Damalia (Achrya)



Series: EreminAU week, 2016 [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Language, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 06:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6944410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achrya/pseuds/Damalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin has been quietly working for Marco, for the resistance seeking to install Historia on the throne and overthrow the corrupt Senate, for years.  He didn't want Eren involved but, maybe, it was inevitable that he would be. This was a war after all. </p><p> </p><p>  <em>“Eren? Eren Jaeger?” Jean’s face screwed up like he’d tasted something sour. “How can you know that? I thought he worked on the Outer Reaches, with Titan Watch.” </em><br/><em>Armin smiled even though his lungs felt like they were being squeezed. “Because when the person you’re supposed to be marrying turns out to be a rebel traitor who else would the military send to bring them in?”</em></p><p> </p><p>EreminAU Week, Day 1: Pirates/Mermaids</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inevitability

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Everything hurts and no one is okay.

They shuffled around and took seats in silence, as was typical of them. Jean sat at a table alone and pretending he hadn't poured some of the rust thinner they called alcohol on this planet into his caff. Armin wasn't sure if he was sitting alone because he didn't trust them, if he was still uncomfortable being around Marco, was really dedicated to acting like he wasn’t drinking, or if it was because he was afraid Connie might actually poison him.

Marco was watching Jean and looking very emotionally constipated. It was basically how he'd looked at Jean when they were trainees and how he’d looked every time they got word that Army Golden Boy and Outer Rim Loyalty Poster Child Lieutenant Kirschtein had fucked up their plans again. So nothing new there. Armin had expected there to be more of a change with the whole faked death on Marco's part and near decade of guilt and alcoholism Jean was working with but no.

They were still idiots who refused to talk to each other. It was like being sixteen again except now people wanted them all dead.

So. Just like being sixteen again, actually.

Connie was staring at his holoscreen, eyes drooping and dark smudges under them marking his weariness. Sasha’s face was in the top corner and he could hear her voice, quiet and crackling from the distance and shit connection, updating Connie on something as he sorted through messages from the ship and the galaxy news.

Armin tried to pretend he couldn't see his and Jean's faces, their most recent ID photos by the looks of things, in the bottom left corner of the newsscreen. They were fugitives and there were considerable, and ever growing, rewards being offered for their capture or proof of their deaths. Preferably deaths, he was sure.

And he? He was tired and hungry and probably looked awful. His skin felt dry and gritty, like the shower he'd taken the night before had done nothing to rid him of 13 planet marked days of desert wandering. His clothes were stiff and itchy from the soap this inn used, his hair was longer than he liked and he couldn't be bothered to do anything but tie it up these days.

Armin scrubbed at his eyes, yawning around a thank you as their waitress dropped food on front of him. It was nothing special, a steaming bowl off gray mush topped with oddly shaped purple clusters he thought might have been berries. Though, now that he was thinking about it, he wasn't sure where someone would get berries on a desert planet on the outer rim. Imported, maybe, but they weren't really paying enough for a luxury like that.

Ah well. Better than nutrition blocks, powdered caff, and rehydrated food pastes. It looked fresh at least and, even if the way the maybe berries bleed purple into the mush when he stirred it up was disconcerting, that was pretty novel. In fact after three weeks in this place eating some really questionable stuff that may or may not have expired months ago but had to worked with, it was pretty damn good. Thick and hot and on the cloying side of sweet. He was only half done before he was gesturing for another bowl.

Even better than this was that they'd been able to spend the night indoors, on actual beds.They’d searching for some elusive disgraced commander and lying low since breaking Jean out of prison four weeks back, sleeping out in the sand and roaming from town to town in the back of whatever transport they could get to pick them up. It wasn't exactly what Armin would call fun.

Compared to his home on the main military work, in the mid-rim, it was a huge step down. Even his tiny bunk and desk set up back on _The Garrison_ seemed like luxury in comparison. And it wasn't as if Armin's life had been easy or the circumstances ideal. He'd spent some of his formative years on the asteroid colony very aptly called the Landfill then he’d gone into the less than tender arms of the military to learn to pilot the 3D mechs and fight titans. He knew all about living in rough situations.

But maybe he'd gone soft over the past decade. He'd held a decent position in the information sector of the military, enjoyed steady pay and good food, had a nicer home and life than he'd ever expected. Yes, he'd been working for Marco and by proxy other pirates for years but he'd never been in any real danger of being found out.

He was good. Very good. He'd basically had the biggest and most well known pirate operation under his command right under the military’s nose and never aroused any suspicion.

And he'd basically thrown all of that away to keep Jean Kirschtein, of all people, from being executed. And he hadn't just lost his job and been slapped on the most wanted list, oh no. He'd given up everything. And it had been inevitable, there was no way he could have played mole forever, but he'd thought there was more time.

That he'd be able to get things in order and explain himself to the people that mattered before running off into space, maybe never to see Eren or Mikasa again.

He'd hoped, in the silly petty way he'd thought he'd grown out of, that he and Eren would be able to get married before it all fell apart.

So much for that.

And he knew he'd done the right thing and maybe that was the worst part. He couldn't even be mad or rage about it. He'd gone against the military and the royals for all the right reasons, he'd shuffled out information that had allowed for pirates to avoid capture, conduct raids, and save their allies knowing it was something he *had* to do, and he'd helped rescue Jean because anything else wouldn't have let him sleep at night.

Out in the sand. On a planet where it was 110 degrees during the day and freezing cold at night. While gnawing stale nutrition blocks and sucking down paste that tasted faintly of mold.

“Are these berries? Or some kind of animal? ...mineral maybe?” Jean was staring into his bowl like it held all the secrets to the world and might reveal them any moment. He'd shaved, ridding himself of his patchy ‘hobo beard’, as Connie called it, but he still looked far from the gleaming example of military excellence he'd been a few months ago.

Supposedly had been.

“Why, not up to your standards? All that time on the inner rim make your forget how it is for everyone else.” Connie snapped back.

“Well destroying homes and ruining lives just goes better after real eggs and meat.” Jean drawled. “Gotta keep energy up for all the baby and puppy killing.”

Oh. For. Fucks. Sake.

Connie sputtered for a moment, face going red. “You think that's funny?”

Jean shrugged in a way that suggested he did maybe think it was funny. Which was a change because so far Jean's emotional range had been angry, pissed off, homicidal, vaguely suicidal, and ‘Fuck all of you.’

Armin looked over at Marco, their brave and fearless captain, and got a shrug in return. Marco was very much about the ‘only get involved when someone pulled a weapon’ school of leadership. Armin prefered to not let things get that far.

“Fuck you-Shit.” Connie swore as he dropped his spoon into his bowl with a clatter, attention back on his screen.

Armin looked as well, something cold settling in his stomach when he saw that Sasha had gone pale and her eyes were wide with what might have been fear.

That had Marco sitting up straight and showing an emotion beyond exasperated. “What's wrong?”

“There's a military ship just got clearance to touch down near you.” Connie said as his fingers flew over the holoscreen. “But maybe...I mean. it can't be for us. How would they know we're here? We've only be dealing with sympathizers and-”

“It's Eren.” Armin said as he reached for the key hanging from his neck. It was there, same as it always was. Heavy and cool against his skin, he could feel the curves and each individual tooth through his shirt. How long had he been wearing this? How long ago had Eren smiled at him, eyes as bright as the stars, and dropped it around his neck?

He didn’t know how they’d been found out, except that someone must have sold them out, but he wasn’t surprised by it. It was true that people who lived in the exterior weren’t always fond of the military, the parliament, or the royals but there was one thing everyone liked and that was money. For enough money even the biggest sympathizer would flip so long as no one they cared about was personally affected. He didn’t begrudge anyone that; life was hard on a planet like this and the reward money being offered was literally enough to change all of that. To buy a plot of land or a home on a mid-rim planet, settle down with their family, and actually scrape out a living.

People lied, cheated, and killed for far worse reasons all the time.

“Eren? Eren Jaeger?” Jean’s face screwed up like he’d tasted something sour. “How can you know that? I thought he worked on the Outer Reaches, with Titan Watch.”

Armin smiled even though his lungs felt like they were being squeezed. “Because when the person you’re supposed to be marrying turns out to be a rebel traitor who else would the military send to bring them in?”

This had been something he knew was going to happen as soon as he agreed to help Marco rescue Jean. He and Eren were linked in all of their documentation, had put in for the time off for the wedding, and he’d long since filed the paperwork to have his post moved to Titan Watch (a move that would have been useful for his spying as well. Things were more lax out on the Reach, he would have gotten away with more) That they’d been together since they were trainees, had grown up together...it would reflect badly on Eren, of course. How could he not know the man he slept besides was a traitor to ‘Humanity’? How had such a thing gone on under Eren’s nose for so long? Was he a traitor too, another rebel hiding among the ranks, quietly taking them apart from the inside? Everything Eren had ever touched would be gone over with fine toothed comb, every move he’d made questioned. His loyalty suspected.

They would, of course, have demanded he prove himself by bringing Armin in. It was cruel but then what wasn’t cruel about war? And this was war, or would be soon. They were gathering allies and supplies, had the loyalty of many people who lived in the harsh conditions of exterior planets and colonies, and they had the attention of the royals and the Senate. War was the only possibility. 

“Married? You two?” Jean’s face did something complicated, somehow surprised and amused and maybe a little grossed out all at once. “Really?”

“We sent you an engagement announcement.” Not that Jean had answered. Not that Jean ever answered any of the letters, birth notices, engagement and wedding announcements, or death notifications from the others they’d trained with.

Jean had started climbing the ranks and somehow fallen off the face of the star map even while being hailed as an example for all Exterior kids to aspire to be like. His face was all over recruitment holos but, beyond that, no one could get near him.

It had become pretty clear on the one year anniversary of the Trost Titan Incident, back before anyone had known Marco was alive and they were still mourning lost friends, when Jean hadn't turned up at the memorial that he was leaving everything from his training days behind. Sometimes Armin wished he had done the same. Showing up year after year only to find that their numbers were slowly dwindling, had felt like watching a slow motion crash and never had it become less painful.

Eren took it hard every year. He would withdraw into himself, become sullen and unreachable as he reflected on on the things he felt like he should have done. The friends and civilians he hadn't been able to save. Eren tried to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders and the best Armin had ever been able to do for him was sharing some of the burden.

Something he probably wouldn't be doing anymore.

It would have been nice to not care like they’d all assumed Jean did. He envied it.

“...I don’t check my mail much.”

It was an odd thing to say and the way Jean said it, all self-deprecating and tired before draining the rest of his caff, was even stranger. It was like he was saying something else that Armin couldn't quite grasp, a sly comment meant for only Jean's amusement. Not that Jean ever looked amused. Just tired in a way that reminded Armin that the other man had been playing a role just like the rest of them all this time. Not that it excused the things he'd been part of or the things he'd done but then it didn't matter if they forgave Jean or hated him because it was pretty clear Jean had nothing but disdain for himself. It seemed...like a hard way to live.

Perhaps he didn't envy Jean after all.

“We need to go.” Marco said as he pushed away from the table. “I have a lead on Pixis and if we can get back into the wilds we shouldn't have any trouble.”

There were tunnels under the hard packed desert, usable onto by those who passed a genetic scan like Marco would. They were lined with dampened and, if they got to an entry point, they'd be more or less impossible to find. The tunnels were okay for hiding but were a shit way to get around, looping and half finished as they were, which was why they'd been sticking to the surface.

“How far out are they?” Armin asked. Connie chewed at his bottom lip for a moment as he considered a map he'd pulled up on his screen.

“Fifteen? Maybe twenty.”

Armin hummed quietly as the others all stood, ready to leave, and thought. The nearest entry point was thirty units away if they made the best time and ran most of the way. Considering it was all flat desert between this little town and the wilds they'd be easily detected and overtaken by enhanced soldiers.

Easily overtaken by Mikasa, who'd always been flat out _better_ than everyone around her and Eren, who was more enhanced than most.

“I’ll stay.” Armin announced. Connie made a choking noise, Marco frowned, and Jean snorted.

“If you want to die so badly we could probably just shoot you now.”

Armin ignored him; the last thing he was afraid of was being shot. He looked up at Marco, his friend and captain, who he'd given his loyalty without question and risked everything to help. He believed in Marco, in Erwin and Levi and their ship, and in their plan to get Historia on the throne. A plan that would need each of the three men in front of him more than it needed him.

His usefulness, now that he was cut off from the military database, was limited. He was a good strategist, yes, but so was Jean, plus Jean had a wealth of information about the inner workings of the royals and the Senate to his credit.

Unless he managed to pickle his brain like he was doing to his liver.

Marco managed to say a lot with the barest twitch of his face. Worry, annoyance, frustration, and the clear intention to argue were all there as plain as day. To think that this man, with his stupidly open face and unwilling essential to sacrifice, was fifth in the galaxy's most wanted list. Then again who would have thought Armin would ever be second?

Even he had been surprised at that, but he supposed it was a matter of saving face for those in power more so than him actually being dangerous.

“Eren and Mikasa won't chase you if I'm here.” He said, smiling faintly.

Marco’s cybereye, emotionless and glowing, flickered then whirled softly as he ran the information. “What if it's not Eren and Mikasa?”

“Admiral Ackerman would never miss an opportunity to send someone's family to drag them in for execution.” Kenny Ackerman, one of the top ranked in the military and the commander at the the head of the push to control the rebel pirates, was generally accepted to be willing to do anything and everything to keep those below him in line.

Nothing did that like public executions and cruel and unusual punishments.

“He's right “ Jean agreed. “Ackerman gets off on that kind of thing.”

Marco closed his eyes then nodded once. “Fine. Let's go, move fast.”

Armin sat back, arms crossed over his chest, and mentally commanded his own cybernetics to fire back up. He'd shut them down after the prison break, knowing the signal could be used to track him, and had missed the constant flow of information from the military database and the familiar hum on the back of his mind. But now, after so long without, it was startling to have his vision go hazy and then inhumanly sharp as data, measurements, facts, analysis of everything around him, flowed. It hurt a little, right between his eyes, but that didn't matter.

The signal would go out and Eren would follow it, bringing his unit into the town instead of out into the wilds.

Then what he knew had to happen would happen. He was dreading it but maybe...maybe this had always been what was going to happen.

\---

“You lied to me.”

Another bowl of mush and a hunk of bread later and Armin was surrounded by heavily armored soldiers.

It was, he thought as he chewed slowly, overkill to come out like they were ready to battle Titans and not scoop up some more or less marooned pirates. The ship, _the Surveyor,_ wasn't even in this part of the system, far away and under Sasha’s control until Marco called them back, so it wasn't like any backup was coming.

Eren and Mikasa were in their normal uniforms, neat and tidy in forest green and white. Mikasa was a grim figure by the entrance of the inn, refusing to look his way, but Eren was at the head of the unit, right in front of him, glaring with bright green eyes.

He looked...hurt. Betrayed. Like he'd found out the person he'd slept besides for so many years had smiled in his face while living a secret life.

All of his reasoning for hiding the truth seemed hollow now. How many times had he told himself it was about keeping Eren safe, about giving him the ability to deny knowing what was going on if Armin was caught, about keeping him from worrying, about not distracting him from Titan Watch? But now...it just didn't matter.

“I did.” And not just about spying, but about where he went, who he was talking to, about long trips for work that had really been spent on Marco’s ship, guiding them around military patrols and breaking past security on convoys they raided.

He'd lied about a lot.

Eren’s eyes narrowed and Armin's chest hurt. Eren hadn't been quite the same since Annie had been exposed as a spy within Titan Watch. He'd taken her in himself, after a destructive chase that had nearly resulted in an entire army satellite base being destroyed and multiple deaths. Eren had sat in on her trial (a total farce as they tended to be in matters of treason.) and watched her execution then come home...different.

This was like that but worse. He felt sick to his stomach, a sour taste lingering in the back of his throat, but it wasn't regret exactly. He'd done the right thing but...well.

“You could have-” And Eren stopped because saying that Armin could have told him the truth didn’t help either of their causes now.

Besides, better just him than both of them. Or worse, all three of them. Following each other to hell and back was what they did, was what was expected, but this time he'd gone it alone to spare them what would follow aligning with the rebels. 

“Where are they?” Armin stared back silently. Eren sighed then, tone shifting to something soft and pleading, leaned close to him. The way Eren’s breath touched his skin was oddly intimate despite what was happening. “Are you going to come in without fighting?”

He looked around the room. He was shut out if the database but his eye implant still took everything in, calculating his position, the numbers against him, the probable modifications of the people around him. It told him his odds.

“No.”

Eren straightened up, eyes sad. Armin inhaled then breathed out slowly. He already knew how this was going to play out, had known when he agreed to stay behind. It wasn't what he wanted but it was the only real outcome.  

He made to go toward his weapon, a blaster on his belt. The soldier closest to him twitched, rifle coming up, and then he was screaming, gun and arm on the floor. Mikasa, energy sword in hand, had crossed the distance and cut into the man with ruthless efficiency.

For a second nothing moved, shock so heavy in the air it felt like it had a physical presence. And then they were moving, rifles firing, swords humming, and the smell of burning flesh permeating everything.

It was fast and it was brutal and when it was over it was the three of them, like it had always been, standing over death and ruin.

Armin looked around them at the remains of Eren and Mikasa’s unit: a dozen men and women they'd known for years, had trained and fought besides as part of Titan Watch, reduced to nothing but smoking meat.

Eren looked...crushed. He stumbled then sat heavily in a chair, head bowed. Mikasa's expression was hauntingly blank. 

Armin put his gun back in his holster and rubbed at his eyes again.

This. This was what he'd been afraid of. Not of dying, of being shot or executed for all to see, but of Eren killing on his behalf. He'd hoped, stupidly, that if he could just keep everything to himself and never get caught that Eren would never have to to get involved. Would never play a role in the death of someone in his unit, or in any human, ever again.

He’d wanted Eren to stick to watching for Titans on the edge of the system, unconcerned with the war that was coming.

But it was done now and he'd been stupid for thinking there was really any outcome aside from this. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is a slice of a large space pirate JeanMarco AU I have, but hopefully works on it's own without knowing anything about that universe. It's basically SNK in space (titans still roam around and eat people, 3D gear are mechs, Eren, Armin, and Mikasa's asteroid colony was destroyed by Titans when they were children, the Trost Titan Incident resulted in the supposed death of people in their training class.) But then goes off into a whole space rebels/pirates vs the government thing, centering around surprise not dead pirate captain Marco and bitter nightmare ridden, alcoholic Jean.


End file.
